


Spark Scar

by Pseudonym-Synonym (CrimsonEnigma)



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Medical Procedures, No Smut, One Shot, and getting angsty, just two grumpy old mechs talking too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 17:04:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1695821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimsonEnigma/pseuds/Pseudonym-Synonym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Megatron doesn't have many mechs to talk to during his incarceration on Cybertron. His only connection to the outside world is Ratchet, and the medic says everything that he doesn't want to hear, especially regarding the ancient scar on Megatron's spark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spark Scar

**Author's Note:**

> Set a few weeks after Dark Cybertron

Megatron had grown accustomed to Ratchet’s grumbles as the medic worked, but hearing the old Autobot use such colorful language was always a treat.

“I suppose that my organs have offended you again, Ratchet?” Megatron smirked.

“If I _ever_ get my hands on the glitch who put you in this frame and he **dares** to still call himself a medic, then I’ll gladly rearrange his internals and weld his servos together so he can _never_ create a fragging slag-pit of a Primus-forsaken tangle of wires again!” Ratchet snarled savagely.

Megatron couldn’t help the chuckle that rumbled from his vocalizer. He almost wished that the guards stood inside the medbay rather than the outer hallway. Then he could’ve seen their faces as the honorable medic cut through the quiet with curses fit for a gutter-mech.

Ratchet responded with an unkind, but not incautious, twist of a wire somewhere deep in Megatron’s abdomen. “Shut up before I disable your vocalizer,” The medic growled.

The former warlord refocused the pain into twisted mirth. “But if you do that, then how would I testify at my trial?”

“Your question suggests that I should care. In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t,” Ratchet snorted, “But I’m certain that a 4 million year war has made you creative.”

“So callous. Where’s your berthside manner?” Megatron couldn’t help but tease. He hadn’t talked to many mechs since being incarcerated in a cell barely large enough for a berth. Even the guards were under strict orders not to speak to him unless necessary, but that was probably more for their protection than his own. While Megatron was no stranger to solitude, the impending trial was making him edgier than he liked to admit. Having any mech to talk to was a treat, even if that rare company was Ratchet.

He supposed that being ripped in half by Galvatron had really done a number on his frame—more so than the obvious separation between legs and torso. It had ruined most of his internal workings and Shockwave’s tampering hadn’t helped. Even after his legs had been welded back on and he and Prime had defeated Shockwave, his internals were a mess. And Ratchet, being the best medic on Cybertron or in space, was tasked with repairing the once-warlord as necessary.

“Quit beating the deactivated cyber-cat. We’ve been over this: I’m only repairing you because Optimus asked me to,” Ratchet switched tools and began rerouting some of the lesser wiring. “I personally think that I’m wasting time and resources on a dead mech. You’re going to be judged as guilty, and then Prowl will see the execution through. It’s only a matter of time now.”

“Then why bother repairing me at all? You could just falsify medical data to satisfy Prime’s whim and refrain from doing any actual work,” Megatron said.

“Tch, typical Decepticon rubbish,” Ratchet grumbled. “If you think that I’d lie to Optimus about your treatment, then your processor is damaged beyond reason. Besides, no mech is dying on my slab if I can help it. It’s called commitment; something you probably don’t understand unless it justifies genocide.”

“How touching. The Prime has the mercy to care about my comfort before ceremoniously deactivating me,” Megatron sneered acidly.

“Tch, as if you should expect anything less from him at this point,” Ratchet began adjusting and re-welding some of the abdominal plating that was healing askew. “War may have stripped you of whatever compassion you once had for underprivileged mechs, but it hasn’t taken away Optimus’. He didn’t ask me to treat you out of pity. He just didn’t see the logic in keeping you in unnecessary pain for a prolonged time. I’d suggest you thank him should you ever get the chance, but I doubt you will.”

Megatron scowled despite himself. He owed Prime many things, but gratitude was not one of them. Megatron’s pain wasn’t any of Optimus’ business. Nor was his life. But leave it to the Prime to always meddle where he wasn’t needed—where he wasn’t wanted. Not anymore.

Ratchet finally set his tools aside, rolled his stiff shoulders, and hooked up his diagnostic scanner in Megatron’s medical port.

“Your readings are more stable, but I’ve still got work to do yet,” Ratchet grumbled. “I need to let those welds take hold before I repair anything else in your abdominal internals. So let’s move on. Open your spark chamber.”

Megatron tensed in shock and snarled. He tightened his fists, ready to pry up the shackles restraining him to the medical slab. “No. You’re not going anywhere near my spark!”

“Oh please, I’m a medical professional. Do you really think this would be the first time I saw it?” Ratchet rolled his optics at Megatron’s sudden indignation. He had run a full diagnostic on the forcibly offlined warlord when Megatron was first incarcerated, including a thorough spark exam. There wasn’t anything that Megatron had to hide from him. He rapped impatient knuckles on the former Decepticon’s chest plates. “Now open up before I use medical protocols to _force_ your chassis open.”

Megatron’s engines rumbled dangerously and he kept his plating tightly locked. It was bad enough being at the mercy of one of his former enemies and treated like a common dreg, but it was downright chilling to bare his spark.

“What could you possibly need with my spark? It pulses, that should be good enough,” Megatron growled through gritted dentae.

“You’re insane, not stupid. You know what I need to examine, unless you’d rather I explain the obvious to you,” Ratchet huffed.

When Megatron didn’t respond, Ratchet sighed. He didn’t have time for this. The medic opened his mouth to give the unnecessary explanation when Megatron finally interrupted him.

“The scar on my spark doesn’t need medical attention,” the warframe finally, quietly conceded.

“Wrong,” Ratchet snorted. “It’s several million years old and it still causes you pain.”

Megatron almost looked as if he had been slapped, but he recovered quickly. “Spark scars are supposed to hurt,” he argued like a cornered petro-dog.

“Initially, yes,” Ratchet rubbed his temples. He did not need a processor ache today. “When a spark is wounded, the neural net connecting it to the frame’s sensors are injured. Over time, repair nanites mend the damage to refrain from putting unnecessary strain on the spark. The scar can never disappear, but the neural net can heal.

“ _Your_ neural net never healed. And if I’m not mistaken—which I’m not—that’s a mate-bonding scar and the agony from one of those is among the worst. Now let me repair the net. It looks like the sensors have been misfiring for a long time now and I don’t want to think about what sort of damage it’s done to your spark these past millennia.” Ratchet refrained from grumbling about incompetent Decepticon medics, but he kept his glossa to himself for the moment. The repair would be smoother with Megatron’s cooperation, but Ratchet could still force his way inside if he needed to. Megatron must have known that.

Yet still, the silver chest plating didn’t budge.

“Do not mock me, medic,” Megatron said at length. “I don’t need the neural net around my spark repaired. Pain is not something that I shy away from. I’ve learned to live with my scar.”

“So you’d rather I tell Optimus that I’m letting you suffer needlessly—that I allowed you to remain on the verge of a spark-attack—because of your macho posturing?” Ratchet laughed mirthlessly. “Do you insist on keeping the injury because of _nostalgia_ or **guilt**? Does the constant ache make it easier to justify torturing other people—to make them feel your pain!? Let me guess! You murdered your own lover because he probably stood in the way of world domin—“

“ENOUGH!” Megatron roared. The shackles on his wrists and ankles screeched as he tried to rip them away from the berth. “You know NOTHING! You don’t know what was taken from me! The slagging Matrix stole my mate and **REPLACED** him with a hollow vessel of its will! I will neither forget _or_ forgive such transgression!”

Ratchet momentarily recoiled from the rage pouring from Megatron’s EM field. The medbay doors hissed open as the guards in the hallway stormed in and aimed their weaponry at the prisoner on the berth. They were practically itching for any reason to use lethal force on Megatron, but Ratchet would not allow it. He had put too much time and resources into fixing the former warlord to see him snuffed so pointlessly.

Ratchet motioned the guards the lower their blasters and ordered them to get their afts back into the hallway. It only took a few choice insults and barks before they uneasily retreated, leaving Megatron and Ratchet alone again.

The ex-Decepticon’s field was still sparking and rolling with aggression, but Ratchet would not cower.

“Are you finished with your temper tantrum?” Ratchet sneered, hiding his surprise at the new revelation (Optimus and Megatron? That was a tank-churning thought). He was a professional and he had a reputation to live up to.

“I don’t want my spark repaired,” Megatron’s optics blazed again, but Ratchet could see the uncertainty. They both knew the inevitable.

“No matter what you say, I still need to fix the neural net. It’s my duty as a medic to repair you. I’d rather we do this the easy way and you voluntarily open up your fragging spark chamber. You don’t need to like this. You don’t need to like me. But this repair is happening.”

“I don’t want it repaired,” Megatron reiterated, as if his wish had any bearing on Ratchet’s decision.

Perhaps it was fatigue or perhaps he had finally tethered in his patience, but the medic rubbed his optics and decided to humor the ex-warlord for a moment. If the mech was acting like a sparkling over something like this, then maybe Ratchet should get Rung to talk to him. He doubted that Megatron would be willing, but this wasn’t about making the former Decepticon warlord comfortable. This was about repairing him because Optimus had requested so. He tried again.

“Why? Your spark isn’t healthy. It’s injured. It’s weaker than it should be because of your damaged neural net. Do you know what happens when sparks hurt for too long? They become overtaxed. They give out. They break down. Pit, I’m honestly surprised that you haven’t had a spark-attack by now! If I understand correctly, you and Optimus were bonded before the war even started. Your body’s had 4 millennia’s worth of chances to turn against you and it hasn’t. **Yet.** I won’t risk your spark collapsing now, not when the war is over and we finally all have a chance at peace.

“If this is about patient confidentiality, you have my word as Chief Medical Officer that everything we discuss is kept between us, unless there’s an emergency situation and then the information would only be used to your benefit. Every treatment, particularly concerning the spark, is kept under intensely encoded files that only I have access to,” Ratchet finished.

Megatron offlined his optics and regained control over his engine block. “I never bonded with Optimus Prime. My mate was Orion Pax,” Megatron corrected, as if he only processed half of what Ratchet said. He clenched his fists tightly and his optics again burned bright. “His spark was forcibly rewritten when he merged with the Matrix—the very symbol of the corruption we were fighting!”

Megatron remembered the agony acutely. Orion’s end of the mate-bond shattered, leaving Megatron’s spark to grope blindly for his lost lover. The pain had been enough to floor the rising Decepticon leader. It had nearly been enough to break him. But over the years, as the lost tendrils of the bond withered and died, leaving behind a massive scar on his spark, Megatron came to appreciate the pain for what it was: a reminder. Megatron was a widow. His lover had been stolen and re-forged into a warrior determined to oppose him.

Whenever he and Optimus Prime clashed in battle, the pain kept his mind fixated on the truth. Optimus Prime was not his lost mate. The Autobot could never fill the hole that his predecessor gouged in Megatron’s spark. Optimus’ peace would never be enough to complete him.

“Ugh, as romantic as that is, you’re still a fragging idiot,” Ratchet snorted disdainfully and threw up his hands. “Do you realize that for the past several million years, you’ve been purposefully HARMING your spark just because you couldn’t handle a little rejection? I don’t know what’s more ridiculous: the fact that you’re a self-inflicted masochist who has managed to perpetuate a 4 million year war because of overenthusiastic entitlement, or that you think that your pain has any symbolism beyond idiocy.”

Ratchet unhooked his diagnostic panel and shook his head. He was getting too old for this nonsense. Let the younger people figure it out. Let the people who hadn’t been tainted by this absurd, imaginary delineation between good and evil fix the mess his generation left behind.

“We’ve all lost someone,” Ratchet offered the thick silence. “This war has continued for so long that we’ve all lost our way at one point or another. We’ve all faced mortality and most of us didn’t like what we saw. It’s all only a matter of time before we die and the world gets passed onto the next generation. But I’m a medic because I believe that every bot is worthy of a healthy life. I keep repairing slag-eating glitches like **you** because that’s what the future is all about. It’s about healing from your pain. It’s about having the strength to move on and find happiness before your time comes.”

Ratchet unlocked Megatron’s shackles and began packing up his tools. “If you don’t want your spark’s neural net repaired, then fine. I won’t push it anymore. It’s your choice to live in the past, to wallow in your agony. If you can’t see the world changing around you by now, then maybe you deserve to hurt.”

Megatron sat up, but he didn’t stand from the med slab. His spark was whirring in both relief and anxiety. When the war began, he had vowed to never accept peace on any terms but his own. And look where it got him. A broken planet, 4 million lost years, and a population that spat in the face of his tyranny was his reward. Perhaps it was time to move on. He had agreed to surrender to this new world that was still just a pathetic little bud trying to bloom. But Megatron hadn’t surrendered to the Autobots. He had surrendered to Optimus Prime.

Megatron wanted to hate Optimus Prime. But he couldn’t.

Perhaps that hurt more than the scar on his spark.

Megatron lay back down on the medical slab. Ratchet raised his brow in confusion.

“I thought you weren’t going to cooperate?” the medic said.

Megatron took a shuddery in-vent. The locks on his chest disengaged too loudly in the med bay.

“You’re right, Ratchet. The war is over,” the silver plating finally slid aside. The dancing light from his war-torn spark illuminated the walls. “Maybe I can finally have my peace.”


End file.
